Who’d have thought a pandemic would bring me back to my blog! Something I haven’t done in over 4 years… I had even forgotten about its existence, much like how I had forgotten how much I enjoy writing, or the other things I love, like reading, playing my old keyboard or guitar, singing off key, dancing like a mad woman. It’s crazy, what being a grown-up with responsibilities can do to you.

It’s crazy what a world wrapped around technology, immersed in the web of digital connections, can do to you. In the past 4 years, a lot has happened. I completed my Master’s Programme, I entered my first full-time job as a Copywriter in a digital marketing agency, I quit my first job and joined a second job as an Account Manager in a digital marketing startup, I’m about to quit that one too and go back to studying (research) and working freelance. Oh, and I suffered a terrible, terrible heartbreak, which taught me to love myself and humanity even more.

It’s mind-boggling though. How the past 4 years have passed by in a whir. Since my last post, 3 collections have happened, 2 research papers have been published and some of my poems have also found a home in a few Literary Journals. And yet, if you’d asked me 3 months ago, I would have said it wasn’t enough. It still isn’t enough, I have big dreams, but I don’t beat myself up anymore for not having achieved a certain something by the age of 25.

I wasted the whole of 2019 by being performative. If you were to visit my Instagram page, you’d see I didn’t write much the entirety of the year, caught in the trap of aesthetic, likes and views as I was – the downside of working in social media. (I shared pretty travel pictures though!)

But ever since the world has been engulfed by a pandemic, I’ve begun to see things in a new light – a fresh perspective. Not at all unaware of my privilege of being able to sit at home and introspect when a good majority of the population is wrapped in the uncertainty of where their next meal is going to come from, I promise. In any case, in this state of self-isolation and social distancing, I feel like the world has drawn closer than ever before.

Reconnecting with old friends and people who matter, reassessing our values and goals, shedding away facades and layers of masks we wear in order to please people which is pretty similar to the Instagram filters we use to be perceived in a favourable light, finding happiness in small moments of joy, in people, instead of placing happiness in expensive materialistic things. People over objects – it took a pandemic for a majority of us to learn this simple lesson. Love and kindness over likes.

This period of self-isolation has given me a lot of time and opportunity for soul searching, it has taught me to love myself and love those who matter with a brand new fierceness and energy. It has humbled me, made me let go of all superficiality, taught me to let go of ego, petty jealousies, envy, grievances and it has taught me forgiveness, made me find my own happiness, made me be the reason of my own happiness, and taught me to speak my heart’s language.

There’s nothing more fulfilling than spotting a smile on someone’s face, or seeing their spirits rise, after you’ve complimented their work or uplifted them with all sincerity, from the bottom of your heart. So why hold back? And why meddle in negativity and complexities?

The mind plays games. But the heart is simple. If you say what your heart wants to say, you strip your life of complications, of regrets, of shame. The mind is obtuse with all its labyrinthine hallways, but the heart indulges in the simple moments of joy and fulfillment, in the happiness of meaningful living, in the true essence of being alive.

And being alive has never mattered more. Never so much before.